Hospitality
by L. Inman
Summary: Marooned in Giles's flat, Spike prods his host for entertainment -- and fodder for his Machiavellian tastes. Set during S4; spoilers through "Something Blue".


Hospitality

"And put it in the microwave for a decent length of time this time," Spike said, putting his booted feet up on the couch in the spot Giles had just vacated.

            "I don't want it to boil and splatter.  Unless you intend to clean my microwave of cooked blood."

            "I don't do cleaning," Spike said.

            "How," Giles said peevishly through the bar window, "would you like to get your own bloody—"  He caught himself.  

            A grin teased Spike's mouth.  "—my own bloody blood?  Well, I only thought, since you said you were getting _yourself_ a drink...."

            Giles, who had set down the decanter, picked it up again and sloshed a few extra fingers of scotch into his glass.

            "I was just appealing to common hospitality," Spike went on.

            Giles squinted at him distastefully through his glasses.  "Remind me why I'm keeping you here?"

            "Remind me why, for all I'm supposed to be the big evil, we seem to be suffering more from the humans in this town?"

            Giles rolled his eyes.  Spike had a point.

            And Spike knew it.  "So did the Red detail your car like she said she would?" he asked, as Giles came back into the room with his scotch and Spike's blood.

            "If you're talking about Willow, yes, she did."

            Spike sniggered.  "How can you tell?"

            Giles chose not to answer.  Instead, he looked down at Spike's boots, planted firmly where he wanted to sit.  Spike stretched out his hands for the mug of blood, making a little impatient noise.

            "Not till you move your bloody feet," Giles said, holding the mug high out of reach.

            "Well, there's nothing on TV anymore," Spike said, sulking.

            "What's that got to do with anything?  I want to sit!"

            Spike glared at him.  

            "The longer you leave your feet there, the cooler your blood gets," Giles reminded him.

            Muttering, Spike took his feet off the couch.  Giles handed him the mug and plopped down with the scotch, picking up the remote as he did so.

            There was indeed nothing on TV anymore.  Giles pressed the power button and put down the remote.  "Nighttime telly's going down the toilet," Spike said, draining the last of the blood from his mug and shaking off his demon face.

            "I wouldn't have thought you'd think so," Giles said mildly.  "The violence levels are steadily increasing."

            "Yes, but it's no fun watching all that violence and not being able to taste any of it."  Spike tried to slouch, but it wasn't as effective without his feet up.  He briefly considered putting up his feet again in Giles's lap, but decided that might be misconstrued.  He got up restlessly and began to pace the floor in front of the TV.  "I'm bored," he announced.

            Giles merely looked up at him as he lifted his glass for another sip.

            "Let's go out," Spike said.

            "And do what?"  Giles was laughing at him behind that serious face of his, the bastard.

            "I don't know," Spike said, "anything's better than sitting around here not watching the telly."

            "Like getting reapprehended by your soldier boys, would you say that's better?"

            Spike glared at him.  "I wish I could bite you."

            "I wish I could oblige you," Giles said, with deepest irony.

            Spike blinked; he wasn't sure how to interpret the bitterness that had crossed his host's face.  Giles took another drink of scotch, masking it.  "Well," he said, his lips near the glass, "I've got _my entertainment for the evening."_

            "Yeah, some entertainment _that_ is," Spike scoffed.  "Not even going to hide behind a book?"

            Now Giles was glaring back.  Good.  Now he wasn't the only one in a mood.

            In his pacings Spike approached one of the bookcases.  "Maybe _I'll_ read a book," he muttered.  "That is, if you have anything other than mug shots of uglies to look at."

            Giles's only response to this was another long sip of scotch.

            Spike took a book at random from the shelf before him, prompting an involuntary stirring of Giles's hand, as if he wanted to protect his book from the vampire.  Spike smirked and opened the book with a show of care.  To his disgust, it proved indeed to be a demonology.  Spike snapped it shut and put it back in its slot.  "What else have you got here?" he muttered, casting his eye over the shelves.

            A narrow box caught his attention, sitting on an eye-level shelf partially free of books.  He pulled it out to look at it, and was immediately enlightened by the dark-and-light squares of inlaid wood.  His black-nailed fingertips brushed the dust from the box's surface; he had not played in years, and though it was a game he usually preferred to leave in his past, he felt a faint urge to engage Giles to a match.  It just might salve his boredom, and it would spare him having to watch Giles befuddle himself and stumble upstairs to bed.  Not that he cared about the bastard or anything.

            Spike turned with the box.  "Play me?" he said.

            Giles raised his eyes from the depths of his glass, and actually blinked.  A moment of silence passed.  "All right," he said finally, and rose with his glass to go to the table.  "You really play chess?" he said over his shoulder.

            "Are you surprised?" Spike said dryly.  "How else do you think I played Angelus?"

            Spike was pretty sure he wasn't imagining the sudden faint stiffness in Giles's movements, as of a forgotten wound.  Nor, he was certain, was he reading anything into the way Giles set his drink oh-so-firmly on the table surface.

            This was much more like it.

            Spike settled himself across the table from the ex-Watcher and opened the box.  After a slight hesitation, Giles reached to help him set up the pieces.  "You take white," Giles said.

            "Ohh, no," Spike said.  "You take white."

            "No, you will take white."  Giles flashed him a thin smile.  "It's a matter of common hospitality."

            Spike's lip curled in a half-snarl; but he acquiesced, and sent out his first white pawn.

            Giles responded with his own pawn.  He took a sip of his scotch and put down the glass, settling his elbows on the table and his gaze on the board, like a griffin, or a sphinx.

            Play advanced slowly as they felt each other out.  Spike was not surprised to find Giles a very good match—but he fancied he was beatable, judging from his sparing use of his knights.

            "Tight ass player you are," Spike said.  He was not above talking trash.

            "Winning, though, aren't I?" was all Giles said.

            "I don't see that."  Spike moved his bishop in for a capture.  "Hey…you know—Giles—piles—they rhyme, don't they?"

            "Check.  Yes, thank you for that lovely little trip back to my primary school playground," Giles said, with sardonic weariness, his eyes still on the board.

            "In fact," Spike said, "I seem to recall a nice little bit of rhyming slang—what was it—ah yes.  'Farmer Giles.'"

            "Yes?"

            "Yes.  Check."

            "Checkmate," Giles said, in a light, prim voice.

            "What!"

            Giles sat back and folded his arms, his smile, like a cat's, not (technically speaking) a smile at all.

            "Naw.  Naww," Spike said.  He checked the board carefully and vaguely redrew the last six moves with his finger.  "Smug bastard," he said finally.

            "Play again?"

            "You bet your arse."

            They played again.  This time Spike did not waste his breath talking trash, and it took Giles a much longer time to drive him into checkmate.

            They played again.  Giles had forgotten the glass of scotch at his elbow and was now drinking in the board, his glasses halfway down his nose.  

            In the midst of a long pause between moves Giles said absently, "D'you want some tea?"

            "Sure," Spike grunted.

            Giles got up from his chair, slowly, achingly.  "I know where all the pieces are," he warned Spike (who grinned in return), and puttered into the kitchen.  

            Spike got up and stretched himself luxuriantly as Giles filled the kettle and put it on to heat.  He wandered over to the bar window and rested his crossed arms on the counter, watching Giles open his tea tin and dig through it for the teabags he wanted.  "Oh don't tell me you're not using loose tea anymore," Spike drawled.  "How the mighty have fallen!"

            "Fuck you, Spike," Giles said pleasantly.

            "At least you haven't forgotten how to play chess."

            "Nor have you, apparently."

            Spike's eyes narrowed in a wicked grin.  He moved in for the kill.  "Have you taught Buffy to play?"

            "Did Angelus teach you?" Giles countered.  "Or—no—I suppose it'd have been Drusilla who taught you."

            The mention of Drusilla was a low blow indeed.  Spike lifted his chin and put the iron weight into his reply.  "I didn't learn everything from Drusilla, for your information."

            "I stand corrected," was all Giles said, but for a moment Spike was enraged.  Which was what he'd wanted, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let the bastard get away with that.  He stood, glowering, while Giles pulled out cups and flopped a tea bag in each.  The water heated under Giles's supervision—even the damned rule about watched pots didn't seem to apply to him—and in good time he lifted the kettle to pour steaming water over each tea bag.  The string and tab of the second one twiddled and flipped at the impact of the water.  Spike was preparing something devastating and subtle to give him in return for that crack about Drusilla: his counterstroke was absorbing itself over and over in his mind and pretty soon it was going to take shape enough for him to use.

            Except that Giles turned suddenly and pinned him with such a well-placed look that Spike's counterstroke dissolved before he could stop it.  

            "How do you take your tea?" he asked.  The soul of politesse.

            "With milk and sugar.  How else is there to take it?"

            "Indeed," Giles said gravely.

            Spike watched his host doctor the two cups of tea with milk and sugar, and accepted his cup docilely enough when Giles handed it to him.  He tasted it.  "Tastes all right," he said, dubiously.

            "You sure it isn't too American for your taste?"  The corner of Giles's mouth quirked sarcastically as he took his first sip of tea.

            "Well," Spike said, "I'm broad-minded."

            "Is that the same thing as being thick-headed?" Giles asked innocently.  "—Well, I'm ready to resume play."  He went and sat down again at the chessboard.

            Spike felt the old grin creeping up his face again, that one that had become inextricably linked in his consciousness with playing hardball.  He took his tea back to the table and sat down across from his quarry.

            It was Giles's move.  

            "You know," Spike said lazily as Giles scoured the board with his eyes, "I would think the Slayer would benefit from a little chess instruction."

            "Do you?" Giles said, taking an impassive sip of tea.

            Spike pressed on.  "Yeah.  I mean, she's got the skills, but you can't say the generalship's exactly in place there, now is it?"

            "Mmm…."  Giles's eyes were still on the board.  "How so?"

            Spike lifted his teacup primly and took a sip before answering, drawing Giles's gaze up from the chessboard and making the man almost smile.  Which had not been the plan at all, dammit: He had been attempting with his ramrod posture and diamond-setting pucker to parody Giles himself, but had accidentally—he realized too late—channelled Wesley Wyndham-Price, instead.  Before the blunder could become irreparable, he plunged on:

            "Well, she lets her relationships interfere with her work, for one thing.  I mean, look at her love life—it's a demolition derby.  She's got no sense about men."

            Giles blinked at him, his expression for a moment defensive.  _She's not even twenty_, he was going to say.  _You expect her to have the benefit of experience before the fact?_  And then Spike would have him.

            What Giles said was:  "Yes, she should be told right away.  It's essential to her success as a Slayer.  You go give her some instruction:  I'm right behind you.  Check," he said, moving a bishop.

            "Now, now, sarcasm's not exactly called for is it?" Spike drawled, inwardly cursing.  "I mean, it's not as if she didn't almost get us all killed.  Or in my case, severely inconvenienced."

            There was a fine sharp edge in Giles's voice now.  "All the more reason for you to go and instruct her, Spike.  I'm sure she'll listen to you.  You're just the man—er, demon—to do it."

            "Isn't that your job?"  Spike reached down and moved his castle, to escape check with an offensive move.  "Check."

            "Not anymore," Giles said.  "And I scarcely think training in human relationships comes under the purview of a Watcher's duties—the, er, zealous opinions of some of my colleagues notwithstanding.  Check."

            Either Giles was more subtle than Spike gave him credit for, or he had just made a badly-planned move.  "But chess does," Spike said, and reached to capture the troublesome black bishop.  "Check."

            "Did," Giles corrected him, staring at the board with a deep frown.

            A silence fell.  Giles sipped at his tea; then Spike sipped at his.  At long last Giles reached to make the only safe move he had:  a move that saved him from check but also made stalemate inevitable.

            Spike surveyed the board moodily.  This was not as much fun as he had hoped.

            "And when it comes to chess," Giles said mildly, lifting his cup to drain it, "I think you'll find that Buffy teaches herself fairly well."

            "Then what are you still doing here?" Spike asked.

            He had not expected to win much of a point with that one, but when he looked up he saw the faint gnawing tension had returned to the man's face.  Giles looked up, his gaze honest and bitter, but also reading him with a humorous clarity that did nothing to ease Spike's discomfort.  Giles answered:

            "Running a flophouse for neutered vampires, apparently.  Are you going to play this to stalemate, or shall we scrap the game?"

            Spike shook his head disgustedly at the board, and Giles accordingly reached for the remaining pieces and began to put them away.  Then he collected the cups and the glass of scotch and carried them into the kitchen.  Spike saw him sniff morosely at the scotch before shrugging to himself and pouring the remnant down the sink.

            Spike got up and put away the box.  "I'm going to bed," he heard Giles say from the kitchen.

            And so he did:  Spike sat slouching in the armchair and watched Giles turn out lights and lock the front door.  When the man began to mount the stairs to his loft bedroom, moving slowly as if the evening had added years rather than hours to his frame, Spike said:  "Sweet dreams, Rupert."

            Giles broke into an unexpected laugh.  "Thanks," he said dryly, finishing the ascent and disappearing from view.  A few minutes later the light in the loft went out, leaving Spike in shadow, sitting in the armchair.

            Where he spent the night, lacing and unlacing his hands, feeling the knuckles hard and uncompromising against one another.  Playing chess moves in his mind, and replaying them.


End file.
